Page 34 - September/October Outdoor Oklahoma Magazine

LARRY E. SMITH/FLICKR CC-BY2

Figure 10: Deer Antlerless Zones Deer Gun Seasons
Oklahoma’s modern gun season ran from
BEAVER WOODS
CIMARRON TEXAS HARPER ALFALFA GRANT KAY NOWATA CRAIG OTTAWA Nov. 20-Dec. 5, 2021. Regulations were
OSAGE WASHINGTON
ROGERS DELAWARE
WOODWARD GARFIELD NOBLE PAWNEE MAYES unchanged; hunters could take four deer, no
MAJOR
ELLIS
PAYNE
DEWEY BLAINE KINGFISHER LOGAN TULSA WAGONER more than one being antlered. An estimated
CREEK OKMULGEE CHEROKEE ADAIR
ROGER MUSKOGEE
MILLS CUSTER OKLAHOMA LINCOLN OKFUSKEE SEQUOYAH 163,903 hunters managed to take 68,879 deer
CANADIAN
McINTOSH
BECKHAM WASHITA CLEVELAND POTTAWATOMIE HASKELL during Oklahoma’s various gun seasons, with
CADDO SEMINOLE
GRADY HUGHES
GREER KIOWA
McCLAIN LATIMER LE FLORE 40 percent of the harvest being antlerless
HARMON JACKSON COMANCHE GARVIN PONTOTOC COAL PITTSBURG
STEPHENS deer. See Figures 8 and 9.
MURRAY
TILLMAN ATOKA PUSHMATAHA
COTTON JOHNSTON
CARTER McCURTAIN
JEFFERSON CHOCTAW
MARSHALL BRYAN The holiday antlerless gun season occurred
LOVE
Dec. 18-31, 2021, and resulted in 6,362 antlerless
deer being taken.
Figure 8: 2021 Gun Season Harvest by Day Figure 9: Gun Season Harvest and Hunter Numbers
2004-Current Youth hunters had
12 the first shot with the
Bucks Does 80 250
youth deer gun sea-
10
70 son on Oct. 15-17.
200 The youths took 4,809
60
Harvest (in thousands) 4 6 Harvest (in thousands) 50 150 Hunters (in thousands) deer those three days.
8
40
Elk
100
Hunters pursuing
20
2 30 elk continue to enjoy
50 growing elk popu-
10
0 lations across most
11/20 11/21 11/22 11/23 11/24 11/25 11/26 11/27 11/28 11/29 11/30 12/01 12/02 12/03 12/04 12/05 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 0 of the state, with the
Day bulk of the elk pop-
Year
32 OUTDOOR OKLAHOMA